


Stripsearch

by hungryhippo_11



Category: StartUp (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Breathplay, Cock Tease, F/M, Good Cop Bad Cop, Gun Kink, Handcuffs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 13:24:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12277371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungryhippo_11/pseuds/hungryhippo_11
Summary: A prequel of sorts to Startup S1. Phil Rask has a meeting with an informant's wife, Nina Morello, which turns out to be a whole lot more than he bargained for.





	Stripsearch

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Title is from the Faith No More song of the same name ;)
> 
> 2\. Made a little playlist while writing that might be useful listening for those interested:
> 
> Faith No More - Stripsearch  
> Faith No More - Evidence  
> Queens of the Stone Age - First it Giveth  
> NIN - The Perfect Drug  
> Björk - Bachelorette  
> Radiohead - Spectre  
> HEALTH - Blue Monday  
> Muse - Plug In Baby  
> Wild Thoughts - DJ Khaled (feat Rihanna)  
> Smooth Sailing - Leon Bridges
> 
> 3\. There's an Easter egg I've popped in for each of these shows:  
> -Better Call Saul  
> -Breaking Bad  
> -Startup S2 (if you squint ;) ) 
> 
> 4\. I beta my own work, so feel free to point out if I've made any errors, it's much appreciated :)

* * *

Nina Morello was right in her element, surrounded by the usual hustle and bustle of Jazz Night Fridays at Amaretto’s. Kitchen rich with smells of homely cooking, the zesty tang of wine and beer flowing in all directions. Dining room filled to the gills with patrons, roaring their joy and excitement, fuelled by rousing piano melodies fused with the punchy hits of trumpets and saxophones. This restaurant was her baby that she’d nurtured from nothing, and now it was flourishing, one of Downtown Miami’s most popular eateries.

However, her mind was elsewhere, wandering ahead to closing time, the early hours of Saturday morning. Once they were cleaned up, she’d let the other staff go so she could have a little time alone to take stock, soak in that euphoric aura of achievement while she could, counting up the cash and locking it all away. Ready for another day.

Normally. On any other night.

The Devil was in the details. Such as an empty flip phone left dumped in the trash. A stray SIM card, almost vacuumed up from under the desk in their study. Four oddly coded text messages and a phone number. A number which rang through to an FBI agent’s voicemail, that voice she knew far too well.

Nina shuddered, resigning herself to delving into the bottle of tequila she had stored away among the other cooking wines, normally reserved for celebration. After four calculated shots, the anticipated buzzing of her phone on the counter ached rather than spiked dread into her heart. Feeling warm, softened edges as she headed out through the back entrance, to where her black Audi A7 was parked.

Tonight, it was time to finally come clean. About everything.

Impossible to miss with that uniquely silvery, side-slicked coif, he’s perched comfortably against the driver’s side door. Almost two weeks straight working long hours on a big case back at the office, yet it didn't seem to show, cutting a sleek, immaculate figure in pure black from top to tail, his skin-tight polo shirt and trousers down to his comfy leather loafers, watch looming large on his wrist. It’s 2am. He was contemplating the old bank building that stood before him, with its high arched stone ceilings, kitchy, world-worn decor and colourful scrapbooked murals. Since finding Amaretto about six months ago, he'd seemingly adopted the place as his home away from home. Almost become part of the furniture himself.

He nods minutely in her direction. Enough to admit the building's facade wasn't the only scenery he was admiring. “Mrs. Morello.”

“Mr. Rask.”

In the prevailing darkness, there's something captivating about him, the way his mood shapes the shadows upon his face, cheeks mellowed, gaze soft, distanced by thought. Something beautiful, yet elusive. As though he's always belonged to the night. Nina fumbles over her beeper to unlock the car, opening the rear door to drop her handbag onto the back seat before settling herself in beside him.

“So, you wanted to talk.”

“Among other things,” she rasps, quick to clear her throat, “I also needed to remind myself how you and Michael look nothing alike, but that bastard liars take all kinds of forms. You guys really deserve each other, you know. Like peas in a fucking pod.”

Granted, that wasn’t only the tequila talking, its sour aftertaste still biting at her palate. The opening salvo, a shot across his bow. Hoping to hurt Phil as she did when it became clear he wasn't merely a random presence in her life. However, he was the architect of this whole venture. Probably planned contingencies for this precise scenario. Rebuttals to soothe her with.

He knits his brows. Feigning hurt. Actually unimpressed.

“The only reason I deal with your husband at all is because he's in bed with the right kind of people. Or the wrong kind of people, depending on how you choose to see it.” He lends her a small, sly smile. “It’s a real shame he kept you out of the loop. Would’ve made for an interesting menagè-a-trois, the three of us working together. Maybe he thought you'd be safer not being an accomplice. Or simply showing how much he truly trusted you.”

“Oh, resorting to cheap low-blows now? Classy.”

While her heart pounds, he’s so relaxed that the hairs prickle at the back of her neck. It’s that muscle memory again, of him, the clasp of his fingers wrapped around her throat, tightening. She's throbbing endlessly, him circling slick over her clit, so wet she’d barely feel him slide and thrust inside her until she was full, so full she’d beg him to rip her apart. Where it’s his voice in her ear that tips her over the edge, calmly ordering her to come for him. That's calmly ordering her now.

“Listen, you're most welcome to sugarcoat this in moral outrage all you want, and I'll just walk away. You've already wasted enough of my time.”

On her left hand, her fingers flex open, then curl back. Clench into a tight fist. It was tempting. Especially when he didn't seem to mind her hitting back. Gleam lively in his eyes. His tongue dabbing at the corner of his mouth. Chortling at the taste of blood.

Exactly the type of reaction he'd want.

“You might want to read the note before you leave.” Nina fishes into her skirt pocket, and takes him by the hand, lodging into his palm a small, neatly folded square of paper, paired with a thumb drive. They remain wedged together as he slips them discreetly into his trouser pocket. “Get some insight into my moral outrage. The fact that I have to sleep with a gun under my pillow now, every night. Not that it helps.”

“You could just leave him.”

She cracks into a laugh. “Fuck you, Phil.”

The sheer nerve, to even consider the thought, let alone say it out loud. That was Phil Rask in a nutshell. Anytime, anywhere, anything for him was negotiable; money, sex, most especially a person's loyalty. This was his world she'd found herself stepping into, dealing with mercenary high-flyers and gangsters, where everyone had their price. Essentially, that's what he was waiting for, taking out his phone and scanning the screen for messages, like he would any other workday. For her to go ahead and name hers.

He pops the phone back into his trouser pocket. “Seriously, have a think about it. Witness protection grants you a clean slate. A fresh, new start. All you have to do is say the word.”

Nothing was certain anymore. Who to blame. Who to trust. Whether to stay. Whether to leave. To fight for what she’d built over four long years, or to cut her losses and start again elsewhere. Toronto…or Dubai. Maybe even Sydney. Make the wrong move, and everyone dies. This miserable clusterfuck of a situation, and she couldn't tell a soul about it. Not to family, or friends. Nobody else would ever understand.

And then to leave. Vanish without a trace. Just like that. Without any explanation. Never, ever see that life again. Those people she loved. Cared most about.

“I can't just walk away from my life here. David’s life here. I've worked too hard--you know that,” she replies, unfastening the clip holding the tightly wound bun at the back of her head. As it unfurls, she grooms at the wavy black tresses falling across her shoulders. Anything to keep her otherwise jittery hands busy. “Michael’s mistakes are his burden to bear, not mine.”

The air is ripe and humid, the kind that makes clothes cling to one’s skin. Such as the black cotton matting to his chest, profiling a trim torso as he folds his arms, the bulge of his biceps. “Sometimes you need to stand by your principles. Other times you just need to survive.”

Exasperation wears at her already tired frame, smoothing out an apparently non-existent wrinkle in her black pencil skirt. She eases her back against the door, eager for the cool, hard metal pressed to her spine. Together with a lighter, she takes out her half-crushed packet of Peter Stuyvesants and slides out the last remaining cigarette. It sits snugly between her middle and index fingers while her lighter sparks the tip alight, glowing brightly once she sucks in a drag, exhaling a haze of smoke into the darkness.

“Says the guy who gets his kicks crossing all kinds of moral lines, blackmailing people into becoming his informants, having his little fucks on the side. Although an informant’s wife must really be pushing it, even for you.” It felt like a balm, talking about herself in third person. At this point she couldn’t talk about it any other way. “Surely this would undermine the case you're trying to put together? You tell me, Agent Rask.”

Stung by that brief pinch of formality, he unfolds his arms, rolling his tongue over his upper lip. His fingers find their way by her side, drumming rhythmically against the hood, pale, fluid against black metal. Eventually, he punctuates his resolve with a firm sniff, the slight flaring of nostrils. He reaches over. Her world pauses. With the air of him, crisp cologne breezing across her. The feel of him, a slight brush of his arm over her breast. Those hands are small but always sure, thumb and forefinger pincered, precise in plucking the cigarette from her mouth. It makes her very insides quiver, watching him savour his prize, a knowing glint in his eye as he places the cigarette to his lips, the butt kissed by smearings of her red lipstick, staining his lips with a faint tinge of red. He inhales a long drag, blowing out a grand puff of smoke.

“What you call blackmail, we call a carrot-stick approach. Tax fraud charges were always on the cards for Michael--it was only a matter of time before the IRS were gonna come a-knockin’. Which would've caused all kinds of trouble for everyone concerned, your husband a sitting duck in jail, with you and little David left high and dry, easy pickings for the cartel. Thankfully, we averted that whole messy scenario through our little arrangement. It meant I needed to keep tabs on what you knew, and...well, electronic surveillance has its limits.”

That moment, when she'd first set eyes on Phil, it was like realising a craving she never knew she had. Heat he felt too, in his glance, attracted to hers, again and again. Simmering beneath their polite conversation. Flirting which didn't really feel like flirting. Later that night in her kitchen, serenaded by the sweet blues of Leon Bridges, hands interlocked, bodies swinging a sway. He'd spin her into a neat twirl, among all the pots and pans and plates. An easy touch, trickling at her waist as she pulled him close. The warmth of him draped around her, mouth gentle at her ear, softly crooning, “No, honey, I won't wear you down…”

She should’ve known better than that. Than to imagine. To dare believe it was possible to keep these worlds discrete. Neat little boxes she could pick and choose from when it suited. Throw away if it all became too hard to deal with, like so much trash.

“Why couldn't you just let me in on this, Phil? It's not as if it's in my interests to tell anyone about my husband's…” she trails off, gesturing vaguely, wishing she had the cigarette instead of the delicate task of finding a civilised word she could use to describe Michael's actions, “affairs.”

Carefully pondering his reply, Phil combs through his hair, those rich, silky grey tufts flowing smoothly between his fingers. Primarily to steady himself, maintaining that familiarly affable poker face of his, except for a couple of worry lines cracking along his forehead. He opts for another drag, venting a veiled stream of smoke out the side of his mouth.

“Trustworthy or not, it wouldn't matter, if the Sinaloans managed to get hold of you with that knowledge about Michael. We'd all be in danger. You'd become a weak point, leverage they could use against us.”

In that regard, his was a hard case to argue against. Within her skirt pocket she’s crushing the empty cigarette packet in her palm, and she can hear it, the plastic crackling, scrunched up. Much like she felt inside. “Right. How convenient. Owning the sword of fucking Damocles hanging over my head while you played me. Moment I step out of line...”

The gesture itself almost stirs her sick to her stomach, motioning a finger along her throat. He needed to see her fear--that this didn't feel like a casual fuck-around. Not anymore.

“Well, it was a good thing you gave me no reason to wield it.” Arm lowered to his side, he casually flicks at the cigarette butt with his thumb, fragments of ash falling to the pavement. Nothing like that blonde-haired, bright-eyed trainee straight out of Quantico she'd found on Google a month ago, sharp in his fitted grey suit and navy blue tie. Idealistic. A go-getter. “This was what you wanted though, wasn’t it? No strings attached. The less we knew about each other, the better.”

“Not like this.”

“Exactly like this,” he scoffs. Somewhere in the distance, a police siren wails, diverting their gazes. Forever on alert, a feeling they both understood. A feeling calmed, focus honed in again, once they found each other. Without missing a beat. “Nina, you need to let go. Stop denying yourself. You work your goddamn ass off like you do, you deserve to let off some steam. What you know about me and Michael doesn't change that.”

“I have my limits, Phil. Not everyone can double-dutch like you can.” Nina's lips purse into a tight, hard line. She kicks at a half-crushed can lying on the pavement at her feet, rolling with a clunk across the alley, ending up landing in a pile of trash bags crammed beside the dumpster.

“I don't know many people who could juggle a high-powered job with raising a kid while enjoying a healthy dose of sexcapades on the side, but such is the spice of life.” Nestled comfortably between his thumb and forefingers, he delivers the cigarette back to Nina, placing it to her mouth. “Add to that playing detective behind our backs to find us out,” he adds, those eyes studying her carefully, watching her take a few puffs, the ash column growing long, withering as it burns out, “and you could've fooled me. _Really_ fooled me.”

The thing is, he was right. She was no better than he was, in her quiet little game of spy vs spy. No huge a-ha! type moments of discovery. No luxury of having all the clues fall together neatly into her lap. Just coffee, sometimes wine consumed in front of Michael's computer over two months of painstaking ameteur sleuthing. Tips from her younger, more tech-savvy staff on how to hack into his accounts. Sifting through his email trails. Connecting the real-life names in the paper with his coded aliases. Mapping out the fake companies with the real ones, that kept him at a sufficient distance to not be immediately suspected of any wrongdoing. Right under her nose.

Fear and rage, those were the feelings she expected to have bubble up. Instead, the thought of Michael, what he did, it made her numb, more than anything else. Going through those motions to maintain a measure of normality. Fucking him when he felt like it. The usual routine of work, looking after David. She was already living the lie like a second skin. The cracks were there. They'd been there a while now. She just didn't want to acknowledge them.

“I could've gone to your superiors about this. I still could now.” She takes one final drag of the cigarette before dropping the butt onto the ground, extinguishing it with the toe of her shoe. Such a vain, empty threat, but she was more fishing for him. Curious to see his reaction.

He hints at a smirk. “Yet you haven't. And you won't.”

Even under the scant lighting from the streetlamp above, Phil's blue eyes simply shine, unblinking. His hand near hers, fingers hovering a touch upon her skin. It often startles her, how intensely he regards her. The hunger with which he pursues. A cool room with hot bodies and fogged breaths. His touch surrounding her belly, sliding over her breasts. Breathy kisses at the nape of her neck.

“Always so damn sure of yourself.” Nina turns her palm outwards, meeting Phil's hand, mirroring the spread of his fingers. “Of course, you're right. If I did come forward hurling that kind of dirt at you, I'd be laughed straight out your office for trying to exonerate my husband. As if I’d actually want that for him.”

Her truth pokes at him, sharp. He barks out a laugh. She smiles, exhaling a hearty chuckle. Feeling lighter somehow. That pressure she carried into this meeting, which threatened to choke her, suddenly lifted. Finally being able to properly breathe.

Naturally, the moment begged that question, the one he'd been hankering to ask all night long. Peering at her, longing for an answer. Since the beginning.

“What do you want?”

She traces over his thumb, up the meaty islet of his palm, taking in the tender skin lining his wrist, then moves onto his forearm, ruminating over those downy fine hairs. In a sense, it was a lot easier to deal this way. Sagely poking fun at the situation, like this was fictional fodder for some salacious crime novel, rather than a scarring reality of life. Somehow, Phil defied the narrative. Neither a knight in shining armour, or a villain. He felt tangible, far too real for her to deny.

That cautious lick of his lips as she entwines her hand in his. Almost shy in baring those perfect teeth, yet so warm and inviting when he does--it melts her. Takes the edge right off. There’s the desire to kiss him again. Re-emerging when he catches her glance. Flirting at something, at opportunity. Right in that moment.

Heat that flares in her body, thrumming over her skin, despite herself. Catching a spark, which leans her in, to close that circuit, ending with her mouth over his. Softly letting her sink into the kiss, his lips are still, framing hers. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, while he's the one fashioning her. Guiding her hip just so, encouraging the jab of her cleavage into his chest, itching for her body to pin him down. She can sense it though. Deliberately holding back. Even though he's the one trapped against the door, and it's her locking onto him, pupil-to-pupil.

Ready to dance.

“You know,” she remarks, at the minute space between his lips and hers, “someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family.”

Those sad, brown eyes. She could barely look at Michael when he kissed her goodbye at the airport. The grip he had on her shoulder, almost possessive, digging into her skin. Asking her for a favour. Business had to go on as usual. Another conference for him in Mexico City. Amaretto. David’s 8th birthday coming up. No need to worry. Everything would be fine.

One more hug, in which she wanted to disappear completely, the moment he whispered the name into her ear, that folded up piece of paper wedged into her hand.“You know the guy--Rask. Special Agent Phil Rask. Find him and make sure he gets this.”

He had no clue how truly screwed up things were. These choices she had to make. Her alone.

“Michael, you mean?”

They're both blushing, though it shows more in Phil’s face than hers. He's taken by the wedding band embedded on her finger. Coupled with her index and thumb to undo the top button of his polo. Then the button below. That ring, its golden gleam dulled, tarnished with time. Routinely ignoring the faint pale line around his finger where his own ring should be.

“No. I mean you.”

For a time he gazes at her, poised to delve in again. Turning over the thought. Dwelling on what it meant. Searching through his armoury of replies. An answer finally arrives in the form of her hand resting upon his chest, taken by the beating of his heart. It was elementary, really. A simple matter of acknowledging the truth. No more bluffing. No more games.

From there it's his turn to melt. Shut his eyes and breathe a sigh, once she turns her lips into the hollow of his cheek, mouthing a streak across freshly-shaven skin. That's his cue, to rush for the side of her face, grasping at plump, the inclining curve towards her chin. Pull her to his mouth, his kiss dripped thickly, smearing himself all over her lips. Not enough to satisfy but just enough to make her moan, craving for more. She seeks him underneath his shirt, cresting upon the ridges of his ribs, arrested by their rise and fall.

“Sometimes, I'd think about it...when Michael would take me out on the bay for our meetings. The two of us, alone on the water,” he murmurs, and she feels each syllable taunt her mouth, his touch gather at her skirt hem, rounding the back of her thigh. Up to her panties, luxuriating in the sensation of silk against her skin. “How easy it would be.”

“Easy?” Nina asks, though she can see exactly where his line of conversation is heading. Murky depths. Dark.

Thrumming, like that very first time, sprawled across the seat of her Audi, abuzz with the line of his gaze, brilliant and shining gleefully while he spread her knees wide. Fucked her so hard she screamed her lungs out, couldn't so much as sit without wincing at work the next day. Opening up this hidden part of herself, needing to feed his cock deep, inside her pussy, her ass, her mouth. Soon enough, those rare idle moments at work were being spent fantasising about him, his wet, aching mouth pooling between her legs, tongue foraging her folds for her clit, sucking her dry. His normally delicate fingers scouring the insides of her thighs. The arch of his spine trailing a steep curve down her fingertips as he shifts his hips, thrusts. Making her fucking surrender. Wait for the rest of the world, her life, to hurry up and tick on by. Living for that simple buzz of anticipation, in those few short hours before they were due to meet, pondering what he'd want to try out with her, how far he'd push her this time.

She just couldn't stop.

“To distract him. I'd only need a second, and I wouldn't even have to...I could just knock him out cold. That would be enough.” Hunger. To kill. To fuck. That vein threatening to bulge along his forehead. Those fingers are far too gentle when they want to be, probing beyond the cleft of her ass, to where her folds emerge, skirting along them. Sampling her wetness, making her gasp. “Leave him out there, for the ocean tides to take him away.”

Nina blinks out the image, suddenly skewered by the clench of her insides, brimming with anticipation, as he drags a slickened trail back towards her cheeks. Along her puckered rim, he traces one circle after another, as a wet finger would round the edge of a wine glass, tuning her into pleasure. “No witnesses, no body, just my word for it, that he flipped out on me, and I had to...I had to defend myself.” He's concentrating firmly on retracing the line of her jaw, that connecting cord of muscle converging at the base of her throat. “An open and shut case, simple. Then you’d be free of this mess.”

“Killing off your golden goose like that...” She moans at his fingertip broaching her entrance, at this idea of his, ridiculous, and wrong, most of all. “You’re a bad cop. A very bad cop.”

“That I am.” Spanning the centre of the hollow above her clavicle, he bears a sad smile. Crooked at heart. ”Still...would you want me to?”

His glance follows hers, down to the little buzz of a zip, his fly being undone. Growing slack-jawed while she's inside that opening, her firm grasp of his erection, growing harder in her palm, his grip flowing upwards to cup her face. He swallows. Her pulse throbs, quickens a little more. Wetness seeping into her panties.

“Maybe I would.” She mirrors his expression. Sad smile. Crooked at heart. Cupping his face in return. “What do you get for your trouble?”

“You, I hope.”

As she tugs at his shaft, she catches the tiniest quiver in his bottom lip, parting ever-so-slightly with his thoughts, swimming behind his eyes. Should've known better than to doubt. Thinking she'd fold so easily to his authority. Simply break her, with that shiny badge of his, his big dick gun. Though he wanted to. Wanted her. Beyond any of those imaginary lines he'd drawn for himself.

Lips shadowed, he entices hers open again, absorbed by the sour notes of smoke and tequila still stewing on her breath. He tilts his head, angling for her gasps, fretting at the teasing of his bottom lip, searching, nibbling at hers, for moments which felt like hours. Just like he would agonise over her clit, the concept alone spiking heat at her navel, as the wet slide of his tongue plays at hers.

They groan in unison, his blissful fingering grinding her raggedly into his arousal, peeking out from his trousers. In a swarm of hands at his sides, she urges his touch, wavering over her chest pocket, shaping the peak of her breast. Demanding him as he demands her, popping her buttons undone one by one, exposing her black lacy bra between parted panels of black fabric. Briefly he opts to lose himself measuring the cleft of her breasts. His lips drift lower, studied upon her chin. Instinctively, she bares her throat. Acquiescing. Confident that he ultimately can't resist her sweet spot. A suspicion he promptly confirms, sucking on her pulse point before peppering kisses down to the ridges of her collarbone. Milling briefly at the small of her back, he scoops her up by the hip, easing her flat onto the bonnet. She finds herself giggling while he wrestles down her bra.

“Oh is this funny? A joke to you?” Though his soft eyes betray him, a lopsided smirk that slips over a chuckle, trying--and failing--to look plausibly threatening. “I'll show you funny…”

Her hand threads through his hair, down to the roots at his scalp, vast clumps sprouting between her fingers as she cradles him, his face smothered in her breasts, muffling his pleasured little moans. For an instant he peers up, delighted with her growing daze. His lips grown pink, moistly converging over her skin. Sensing her begin to crumble, at the enriching sensation of his teeth scraping at her dark areola before tonguing her, deliberate, swirling strokes, while he teases slow circles with her other breast, subtly thumbing over that tip, pebbling her hard. She positively whines when he cups his palm, shaping her overflowing flesh, nipple rising to meet his waiting mouth, whetted with her taste, needing more. He devours her by the chunk, sucking fitfully at her nipple, nourished by her raking nails over his shoulder blades, hitching her knees, heels massaging his thighs.

“You ready to beg?” he growls, a primal sound that practically eats at her already engorged pussy. Driving her hand back to his groin, to fondle his head, thumb along his slit, taken in by the slippery texture of his beading pre-cum. Which she immerses him in, biting his lip, wringing out a groan as she smears it slickly over his bulbous tip.

“I was gonna ask you the same question.”

He answers with a grunt, and a snap of her wrist, levering her arm up to her face, those gleaming fingers shoved towards her mouth. Something flickers wild, dangerous in his stare, lips baring a snarl. “Try again.”

“No. I'm not. Not yet.” She consumes her fingers whole, sliding up from their bases through to her manicured, french-polished nails. Enjoying his unique saltiness, how it fuels her bravado, despite him being the one in control. Veering upon the very edge of a cliff. Uncertain where she'd end up. Make me, Phil. Make me fall.

This time round, it was bent over the car bonnet, arm twisted behind her back. Staring at reflections, vague shadows darting over the gleaming ebony surface. More metal clinking, of chains, cuffs being drawn out. The brush of his thigh inside hers, planting his foot by her ankle, shuffling her leg further apart, spreading her buttocks. To yield to him, the weight of his hips, cock imposing, prodding her ass through her skirt. Well aware that it would add to her torment, letting his shaft graze her cheeks as he shifted above. Hovering so close, him and his breath clouding her senses, those smoothly memorised words, whose tone cracks at her like a whip.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say here can and will be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?”

“Oh, c’mon--you already got what you came here for.” Nina sniggers. Not that it particularly fazes him, continuing to obey his routine, collecting her free arm, curling his hand, shaped by her bicep, to brace the knob of bone at her elbow, down to her forearm. Her wrists gathered together, entwined with those cuffs, latched tight. She winces. “You have my confession. No need to make a girl beg when she's been at your mercy the whole time.”

“You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed at no cost to you. Do you understand?”

Steadfastly calm, that voice. Impossible to tell if he’s joking or not. In the mood to deal out a kiss or pull his gun out and blow your head off. But why? What was he aiming at, playing this ‘good cop bad cop’ shit?

“I guess that’s the issue, what to do now you know.” Cheekily, her heel flirts along his calf. A distraction for him while helping her focus, think over the options, his options. “Is intent enough to bring me in? Do you just keep closer tabs till I make a move? You could keep me in play as your Plan B, a fallback in case you fuck up and lose him...or trade him out to them for your own gain. The ambitious, career-driven wife, fed up with being trapped in her husband's shit. How damn easy would it be, when the time comes, and I'm no longer useful to you, to hang me out to dry?”

“Shut up,” he snaps.

Click. As she did each night before she went to sleep. Cocking that hammer. His muzzle, firm at the back of her head. Her whole body freezes. Heart thumping in her chest. Just because he won't doesn't mean he couldn't.

“Pin all the blame on me. An open and shut case, simple. Or maybe not, once I bring out all the dirt about us.”

On the flip of a dime. That's all it would take. Or a slip of his finger on the trigger.

“Always so damn sure of yourself.” Anger radiates in the smirk tickling his mouth, echoing her phrasing. “You think being a hard-ass cynic and keeping everyone at arm's length will protect you. It won't.”

His knuckle feathers her cheek, much like a kiss, as he moves to tuck a swathe of hair behind her ear. Silently, she inclines towards his touch. Powerless to her own instincts.

“In the end, you're still here. Dancing with the devil anyway, of your own free will. Because you just love to flirt with temptation,” he whispers up close, lifting up her skirt around her hips, making sure he skims her thigh while he does so, “How those thoughts eat away at you, lying all alone in bed, cold and pining for your sheets to stink with the smell of me.”

Indulging himself with her ass, adopted into his palm, he reveres her firm shape, supple skin. Sensitive too, to his slap, her wail hurrying him into tugging down her panties, which drop to her ankles as his teeth nip at her earlobe, eager to further bait her. “When he kisses you goodbye on the mornings he's actually around, except that hunger in his touch, it's really not there anymore, and you're convinced it's reserved for his hot, young P.A., instead of you.”

Cold metal finds the base of her skull. Another low-blow. The shit he somehow knew. Surveillance. Of course. Fucking dammit. Needing to concentrate. Sensations. Adrenaline blooming, twitching at the farmost reaches of her limbs. Fear...it never felt so great.

“After one of our workouts, and you've long ceased to give a shit what I choose to fuck you with, my mouth, my dick, my hands...my gun...” He leads a steady caress, scored down the nape of her neck, hairs of every pore he touches standing on end. The nuzzle juts sharply into each column of her vertebrae, from the valley of her spine down to her tailbone. “Wishing to hold onto that sense of bliss, and you remember again, the possibility that this could be the rest of your life, if you wanted it.”

Happy ending. Crashing some kid’s frat party, ending up drunk as fuck on cheap punch, her down on her knees, unzipping his fly, hungry for his come. His grip twisting her pony tail, feeding her mouth around his cock. Thrusting slowly so his tip hit the back of her throat, making her gag. Seeing stars.

“If you let me help you.”

“I can't, Phil--AHHHHHHHHHHHH…”

Nina feels the barrel skirt her rim, sliding in between her legs, its tip nuzzling at her, parting her folds. Thoughts dissolving into that one single idea. Always there when her mind was clear. The sheer power of a bullet in the right head. How easy it would be. Execution style, muffled by a pillow. Blunt force trauma as her alibi. No prints. No DNA. No witnesses.

“If anything gets traced back to you, you know I'd have to go after you. Hunt you down to the very ends of this green fucking earth,” he utters, her knees starting to buckle under his strokes, the agony of pleasure aching around her pussy, seeking a jagged kiss from its bevelled, squarish mouth. “No holding back. No mercy.”

At the back of her head, his nose weaves its way through swathes of hair, cursed lips buried at the nape of her neck again as he casually angles for her entrance, toying with the sensation of forged metal on flesh, padding at her vulva. Her whimper at his gentle pressure. A trill, keening sound with firmer pressure.

“Hell…” She smiles, in spite of herself. “I'd like to see you try.”

Fighting words. In retaliation he swipes at her clit. She lets out a ragged cry, awash again with the surge of her building orgasm, wringing her hands helplessly. Out the corner of her eye, she spots him placing the gun down on the bonnet, tantalisingly out of reach. Loud and abrupt, the dull clunk of metal on metal. Making sure her juices are visible, faintly glistening across the muzzle.

Equally sure in his grip on her shoulder as he enters. Knowing how to fuck her, and with that, how to hit the wrong spot, fracturing a grimace in jerking her upright. Immersing himself around her. Full. However, not full enough, not in the right way. He braces the curve of her hips, caressing her thighs. Thrusts moulding the rise and hollow of her stomach as her ass juts out, desperate to take him in deeper still. Hips rolling back and forth in time with his chest massaging her back, hands swallowing gaping handfuls of her breasts in his palms, holding her sway. Fixate her on every living inch of space his cock takes up; the pressure, of being so close, for this long, and still being deprived. She grunts, writhes upon him, scrambling for that angle, that point of relief. Except he won't let her reach it. Leaving her dangling while he warms into her himself, little by little, until she's loose, utterly empty inside. He pulls out, drawing her attention to him, as he'd intended, unable to tear her eyes off his erection, proud and thick and shiny for her.

“You’re scared of me, aren't you?”

Phil looks her over, like a switchblade fanned out, pointed straight at her throat. Possessing a chunkful of her hair, twined in a bundle around his fist.

That loaded gun on the bonnet with its safety off.

He grits his teeth, plunging himself deep, right for her spot, rocking shudders through her body. “Fuck!” he yells, at the clench she lashes around his cock, and he reins her in, pain blinding, ripping throughout her skull. She relents a scream, but that only rages him, quickfire penetration, like puncturing bullets hitting their target, BANG BANG BANG. Friction that burns, splitting her right up the middle, to his hand snatching her waist, sliding up her side to cling for her breast. Teeth latching onto her shoulder, a stinging bite fuelling the arch of her body, bucking hard against him as he rides their orgasm. Finally relieved by the long, pulsing streams of wet heat he feeds within, a swirl of euphoria better than any booze haze, sweaty and sticky all over her parched skin.

Sunken for a while, heavy with him, catching each other's breath, her thoughts meander nowhere, hot and throbbing. Careful hands surveying her body, checking that she's okay.

“Phil?”

“Yeah?”

She swallows down the dryness of her throat. “Can you hold me?”

A tender kiss upon her head. “Sure I can.”

The world began to solidify again, sobered up once the cuffs came off. Back to normality. Besides her open car door. Their escape, hidden away by tinted windows. Inside this car cabin, the plush sterility of its luxurious cream leather trim, where she could retreat into his lap and curl up with his arms cradled around her. Let her guard down, nestled in the crook of his neck, surrounded by his warmth, and just drift along. Nothing more to worry about. Only some tiny rustling to her side, of paper being shuffled, being unfolded. An annoying scratch. No big deal.

Nina shuts her eyes, and sighs. Letting the night finally take her, in a way it hadn't for such a very long time, she’d nearly forgotten how good it felt. Floating away with the lightness of being. At peace with herself.

“When did you get this?”

His voice sounded so small. Arm braced alongside hers, fingers interlocked, clutching her hand like he'd never want to let her go.

“Day before yesterday.”

Those words burned into the backs of her retinas, she wouldn't forget them. _Pinche puta we kill the snitch on your order or you all die. You have 3 days._

“You already made the call.” Staring into space. Reality dawning heavy on him. Reasons, her choice to have this meeting tonight. Why she allowed him to push her right to the edge the way he did. Deal out a little punishment.

“Yeah, I did.” These words, they weren't really hers coming out of her mouth. As if they were from someone else. As if they weren't quite real. “You said it yourself, you do what you need to survive.”

“I know what I said.” He pats down her skirt pocket. Rifling through, digging out her lighter.

“Hold on, what are you doing?” She grabs his wrist. He shrugs her away, twisting to his left, shoulder walling her off from reaching in to stop him. It's a stupid question, it occurs to her. So stupid.

A mechanised whirr, of the window behind his head lowering open. He holds out the note, soon paired with a flickering spark, the flame licking sweetly at its corner. Staring intently at the fire, engulfing the page in a matter of seconds as it falls from view. “Helping you.”

When everything ends and everything starts. Love in his eyes. Or what she thought looked like love.

“Once I'm gone, you're gonna go home and erase any trace of yourself on that laptop. None of this ever happened. I don't know you, and you don't know me. Is that understood?”

She nods.

Facing her again, he slips her lighter back into her skirt pocket. “Maybe...maybe you remember my face from seeing me at Amaretto’s--that’s all.”

“Oh yeah, that guy. The one who kinda looks like a 50s matinee idol.”

His mouth veers into a chuckle. Crackling the rest of his face like fine glass, threatening to shatter. “Well, well, well, the sentimental romantic finally shows herself.”

“Just once more...for old time’s sake.”

In turn she feels her own grin falter, like defrosting ice. There it was--their future. The end. Keeping a healthy distance. Forgetting everything. Her slate wiped clean. Bleak, weary bags weighed delicately above his cheeks. Though his gaze holds her steady while she reaches behind her back to unfasten her bra, shrugging off her shirt.

He leans in, a chaste kiss, lips cautious, his uncertainty drawing her into his lap, wrapping her legs around his hips. Drowning his doubt, pubic bone gently grinding at his arousal while she lets his hands pour over her again, head undulating at the longing stroke of her neck, skirting her collarbone, the angled peak of her breast. Allowing him to cradle her down, reclining back on the seat, that pesky skirt shuffled off with her underwear. Desperate to go back, to forget the now. Hitch her knees up, spread herself wide for him, mouth devoutly lining the plane of her belly, dipping at her navel. Fingers inching for the apex of her thighs, opening her up just like he wanted.

Exactly like that first time. She'd never forget it.

~~~~~~~~~~~ Fin ~~~~~~~~~~~


End file.
